"I'd just got back [to Christchurch] from the Measina conference in Samoa, which was about the psychological effects of the tsunami on the region a year ago," Mr Gorrie (22) told the Otago Daily Times when he landed back at Dunedin International Airport on Saturday afternoon.
"I got back to my parents' place in Avonside Dr about 7pm, but I didn't get to bed until about 12.30am, because I was talking to mum and dad. I'd only been asleep for a few hours when it felt like someone was violently shaking the headboard of my bed.
"I sat up and went to put my foot out of the bed and ended up on the floor. Literally getting thrown from bed like that is a bit of a wake-up call. The whole house was oscillating. You could feel the floorboards warping. There was so much force. It lifted the house off its foundations.
"The chimney came down with a crash. All the glassware was shattering and there was massive cracking in the walls," he said.
"We couldn't get out of the house, initially, because all the door frames had warped. We had to bash our way out of the house.
"When we got outside, the whole [Avon] river had come up. There was about 25cm of silt right around the house. To have this happen in your own back yard is crazy."
Huge fissures ran the length of Avonside Dr and most of the houses in the street would be condemned, Mr Gorrie said.
"The deepest cracks were over my head and I'm six foot (1.8m). Mum and dad [Salah and Dave Gorrie] are bunking down with my brother, Kaylib, in Shirley. Most . . . people in the street are bunking down with friends or in hotels."
